Page 47 of Keeping Lucy

“It’s so dumb,” I sniffed, sliding my arms around his waist and resting my head against his chest. Man, he smelled so good, I could stay here all night. Just stand here in my chaotic kitchen and breathe him in.

“It’s not dumb. You had a long day and you wanted grits.” He dropped a kiss on the top of my head and I almost wanted to start crying again because it was so incredibly sweet. “You go and have a shower, and I’ll run to the store.”

“Oh no, you don’t need to do that. It’s fine, I can just have pancakes.”

“Pancakes are not grits. I don’t mind.”

I pulled back slightly to look up at him. “You’ve just driven nearly two hours, it’s late, you don’t want to go out again.” His smile made my heart squeeze.

“Sure I do.” With his hands on my shoulders, he pushed me away gently. “Here, eat some of these to tide you over until I get back.” And in the grandest of unromantic gestures, he fished a package of pretzels from the pile of food on the floor and handed them to me. I took them from him, ripping the bag open while I tried to find a way to stop him from going out so late on my behalf. “Don’t argue with me. It’s barely nine o’clock. I can handle ten minutes out to the store and back.”

Well, that was pretty forceful, and yeah, a little bit hot. It was hard to argue. “Okay.”

“Good girl.”

Did he do that on purpose? I munched on another pretzel, giving him a steady look, but he looked the picture of innocence. It was just my overactive hormones making me imagine things that weren’t there. Or my suddenly perfect memory, that recalled him saying that to me while he made me come. Great, now I was blushing. Time to get out of there.

I came out of the bathroom thirty minutes later, looking decidedly unsexy in flannel pajamas, fluffy slippers and my favorite dressing gown. I’d taken the time to blow dry my hair, so that was something, I guess. Now I was ready to tidy up my pantry and make some grits. I stopped short in the doorway, biting my lip. Dante was at the stove, in my now spotless kitchen, stirring the contents of a pot with a wooden spoon. Was this some kind of sex fantasy? It was indescribably hot to me, making me want to rush in, rip off his clothes and kiss him all over.

When he looked up at me, I noticed his eyes flick up and down, taking me in. Again, that urge to fluff at my hair was irresistible. “Out.”

“What? I can take over from here. They’re my grits, you already bought them for me, you don’t have to make them for me as well.”

“I said out. They’re nearly done. You can have them in the living room.”

Grumbling something about autocratic bastards who thought everyone had to do everything they said, I did exactly as he ordered.

My stomach was on the verge of nausea by the time he brought them to me, so instead of arguing, I just meekly said, “Thank you,” and took them from him gratefully.

He sat on the other end of the couch, picking up the tv remote and stretching his long legs in front of him, settling back. “Do you mind?” He gestured towards the television with the remote.

“No, go for it. I wasn’t watching anything.” As I ate the grits—they were really delicious—I tried not to think about how utterly married and couply it was to sit in a lamplit living room together, the wife in her pjs eating comfort food, while the husband channel surfed.

“Everything go okay today?” he asked quietly, breaking me out of my little reverie.

“Yeah, everything’s fine.” He flicked me a look before returning his gaze to the television. I felt like I didn’t want to go on about the baby too much, knowing how he felt about it, but it seemed weird to not elaborate. “Everything’s measuring as it should, all the vitals are perfect. All my vomiting doesn’t seem to have affected the baby.”

“What about you?”

“I’m fine. Well, not totally fine, obviously. We haven’t quite got the nausea under control, but I’m not losing weight anymore, which is something. And maybe I’ll be one of the lucky ones, where the extreme nausea settles down after the first trimester.”

“Good.” He seemed about to say something more, then think better of it. “My sister called today.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. She’s able to get away for a few days and wants to come down to visit.” He looked at me uncertainly.

“Great! I’d love to see her.”

“You do know what that means, though…”

I frowned. “Do I?”

“She’s going to expect to stay with her brother and his new wife. It would be very strange if I didn’t say she could.”

“And?”

“That means I’ll have to sleep in your room.”

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